From Zero to Hero

Well, what do you know? Russell Brand has been forgiven for his transgression of taste and decency...

The Poor old Beeb

I'm sorry, but I'm gonna call out Jon Gaunt right now. He's a bully and a bit of a shit.

The BBC has had a torrid 12-months or so. The 'Wossy/Brand' affair (Sachsgate™), which has to be the most overblown media hissy fit since the last one, still rumbles on like some colossal gelatinous space blob - consuming column inches and careers with unrelenting appetite.

Then, as if flogging dead horses were a national sport, the lefties and proggies have taken the Beeb to task over its refusal to show an appeal for Palestinians caught in the Israeli siege of Gaza.

Now exhausted and emasculated, having been poked, beaten and punched by both the left and right, the BBC has to contend with the flabby frame of Jon Gaunt piling on like an over-excitable school-yard bully.

On the pages of last Friday's Sun - which lets remember is part of the very same family of outlets that includes the BBC's main rival: Sky TV - Gaunty welcomes the Beeb's gutless decision not to air the Gazan appeal, before spending the rest of his column in a bitchy tirade against auntie that had all the fairness and plurality of a Klan lynching.

When Sun readers follow these diatribes, do they actually understand The Sun's (or rather News Corporation's) commercial interest in attacking The BBC? I'm all for free speech, but I've never seen a disclaimer printed below these bitch-pieces, explaining the paper's interest in the network's fortunes.

Is it right that Murdoch uses The Sun as his own salivating attack dog? And what do we think of Gaunt, a man apparently willing and eager to whore himself out as Rupe's lieutenant?

Well I think 'Jon Gaunt: rent-a-shit' has a nice ring to it.

The dead horse needs another flogging

The Guardian/Paul Carr:

So, anyway, yes, New Year - and the second in a series of columns (the first being Christmas Eve) when it's traditional to write bugger all about anything important, safe in the knowledge that no one is reading.
...
But what to write in a week when nobody's reading? It's a tricky question and last night, hurtling towards my deadline and still absolutely bereft of inspiration, I decided to click over to the websites of the Daily Mail and The Sun to see how professional journalists deal with the problem. And sure enough there it was - a ruse so simple I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of it myself.

"Shameless Jonathan Ross still joking about Andrew Sachs messages" screamed the headline on the Mail's site.
...
Brilliant. An entire story created out of the fact that Jonathan Ross has a Twitter account, and occasionally uses it to make quite funny jokes about his personal situation.

Meanwhile, Sun hack Cara Lee went one better, hacking out not one, but two pieces from that same non-story under the headlines 'Ross jokes about Sachs' and 'Ross: I'm having so much fun'. And never one to switch dead horses mid-flog, the paper then passed the bloodied news baton to Julie Burchill who wrote a whole column starting with yet another of @wossy's Twitter updates and ending with her calling Ross "a big ugly baby". The woman is nothing if not self-aware.

What a charming young lady.

We've noted in the past that the Sun's readers often think that the antics of the newspaper they read are either tasteless or out of order. No real surprises then that they don't think much of the paper's buying of the story of Georgina Baillie, currently at the head of the storm involving the calls made by Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross to her grandfather, Andrew Sachs:

"Excuse me ???? She said her issue over this was that whatever happened between her and Brand ought to have been a private matter.!! NOW she comes to cash in. Hypocritical in extreme.
Spilling the beans is almost as bad as Ross/Brand yelling it down the phone to her grandfather.What bit does she not get about "respect" ??????"

"So the official response to despicable behavior is then to behave (and print) vengeful abuse in return? Why didnt I figure that one out, there was me thinking publically abusing people was bad, apparently not, only if someone does it without being paid for the story first. I get it."

"what a hypocrite, she whines that her privacy was invaded and then does the exact same thing back"

"I do believe that Andrew Sachs was genuinely upset over the comments made about his grand daughter. Not something you want to hear. But his grand daughter seems to be reeping the rewards for what happened. She wanted her relationship (if thats what you call it) with Russell to be private but now she is selling her story on their sex life (slept with him on first night, must be well proud). I would also like to know if this radio programme had not gone out on air, would there be so much hype about it. Ross and Brand took a joke one step too far but I dont think they should be sacked. To be honest the cost of TV license is more of an issue and cause for complaint than this."

"An unkonown milking this for all it's worth. For god's sake give it a rest, nobody is interested."

"Unfortunately for her poor granfather, he now has to read about his granddaughters antics in The Sun. What a charming young lady."

"What is more upsetting to Andrew Sachs? Russell Brand saying it on a radio show that 400,000 people listened to or his grand-daughter repeating it over and over again in a national newspaper giving all the sordid details?"

"This is pathetic, if this girl is so upset by what has been said. Why is it that she has sold her story about her relationship with brand to the newspapers. There are far more serious things going on in the world at the moment. This show was pre-recorded so why didn't somebody edit all this out before it was broadcast?"

"Not only has poor Andrew Sachs gone through the humiliation of all of this, the poor sod gets to hear how his granddaughter rates one of her former lovers in bed!!! He'll love that!! It's given her the publicity she wants anyway.... How much did she get for telling her side of the story???"

"Methinks someone might be smelling an opportunity to become famous..."

Meanwhile, the Sun was demanding this morning that more heads roll. Nausea prevents me from pasting parts of it, such is the cant of demanding that such filth be prevented from reaching us, but the accountability part is worth linking in:

"This week the BBC has looked leaderless. Bosses froze in the face of national outrage.

The BBC has huge power. It receives vast sums of our money.

In return it has huge responsibilities.

Yet the BBC’s lack of accountability means it too often shows contempt for public opinion.

At a time of crisis its top managers have been exposed as weak and indecisive."

Yes, all this over two presenters who went a bit too far in phoning up a guest who was meant to be on their show but couldn't make it, who even authorised the broadcast as long as it was toned down a bit. The Sun meanwhile back in July was part of the troika of newspapers which paid Robert Murat libel damages for printing numerous reports alleging that he had abducted and/or killed Madeleine McCann. What's worse? An old actor being somewhat humiliated by a granddaughter he must have had an inkling was hardly a shrinking violet or a man having his life ruined at the hands of the gutter press? We all know now.